- TON has experienced a significant disruption, halting block production for several hours due to transaction overload from the DOGS memecoin
- Exchanges have temporarily suspended deposits and withdrawals due to the severity of the issue
- The disruption has been confirmed as unrelated to Telegram CEO Pavel Durov’s recent arrest
The Open Network (TON) experienced significant disruption last night, with the blockchain grinding to a halt and failing to produce new blocks for several hours. The issue has since been put down to transaction overload caused by the popularity of the DOGS memecoin. Now back online, the failure of the blockchain is completely unrelated to the arrest of Telegram CEO Pavel Durov, but was so serious that exchanges temporarily suspended deposits and withdrawals.
TON’s Troubled Times
TON, which started as a project associated with the messaging platform Telegram, has faced serious challenges since its inception. After a record-breaking initial coin offering (ICO) for its native token, Gram, in 2018, the project was halted by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which classified the token offering as an unregistered security. Telegram eventually withdrew from the project in 2020, leaving community developers to continue the network’s development, now led by Anatoliy Makosov and Kirill Emelianenko.
TON’s eventual launch has met with huge success, most notably due to the viral game Hamster Kombat, but it seems that its recent launch of the DOGS memecoin was too much for the platform to take.
Blockchain Took “A Little Break”
Tonscan had earlier highlighted the impact of the memecoin on network traffic, noting that “a few central services” were taking a “little break.” This high activity led to a decrease in the network’s transactions per second (TPS), falling short of expectations and causing significant delays:
TON Blockchain is currently experiencing a disruption in block production.
The issue is occurring due to the abnormal load currently on TON. Several validators are unable to clean the database of old transactions, which has led to losing the consensus.TON Core has issued a call…
— TON 💎 (@ton_blockchain) August 28, 2024
This, in turn, led to no new blocks being generated for over three hours, causing the two biggest crypto exchanges in the world, Binance and Bybit, to suspend deposits and withdrawals related to TON. Bybit, in particular, cited the halt in block production as the reason for its decision.
The network has since resumed block production, allowing DOGS traders to buy and sell to their heart’s content:
TON is now producing blocks normally!
We are back online. https://t.co/iXM6kF464T pic.twitter.com/FQ6eOt9fok
— TON 💎 (@ton_blockchain) August 28, 2024
Despite the network issues, the price of TON remained relatively stable on Tuesday, though it has seen a decline of more than 20% since Pavel Durov’s recent arrest in Paris. Durov faces charges related to facilitating illegal transactions and other criminal activities through Telegram, further complicating the network’s situation.
